What the papers say

Yikes, dear readers, it's been a while.  Sorry about that - not sure where the time went or what I was doing, although doubtless, eating, drinking and going to the movies featured large.  Speaking of movies, have you seen Oblivion?  Personally, I'm not that big a fan of Tom Cruise, or sci-fi, but I did like this movie, largely because of the look of the thing (and I'm not talking about  Mr Cruise in a tight fitting, dove gray leather biker suit or Andrea Riseborough in the swimming pool in her birthday suit.)  The skytower house that Tom and Andrea inhabit in the movie is a thing of beauty - think Le Corbusier meets Apple to get the idea.  It is rather like a beautiful flying saucer on a curved stalk, with a see through swimming pool - just the sort of place I would want to live 60 years in the future (and it's all on one level, so I wouldn't need to worry about where to put the stairlift!).

A while ago I promised to write about the Singapore press, since although the newspapers here report on what is going on in the rest of the world, you don't hear much about what is going on in Singapore in other nations' media. 

First off,  most all of the available dailies and weeklies are published by a single group - Singapore Press Holdings.  The main exception is Today, a freesheet, which is also available online - here is today's Today for you to browse: http://www.todayonline.com/. 
So what are the hot stories in the Straits Times (the quality broadsheet) and Today, the other paper that I read on a regular basis?  First up, the sex for grades scandal. This is all about a law professor named Tey Tsun Hang,who has been accused of corruption for allegedly "obtaining gratification in the form of gifts and sex from a former student" in return for giving her better grades.  This story first appeared several months ago, but continues to run and run, partly because the trial has been adjourned a couple of times, and partly because people love to read about other people's sexual misfortune, I guess. 

Another theme that keeps coming up is the gay rights debate.  While countries around the world are legalising gay marriage, in Singapore, sex between men is still a criminal act.  While prosecutions happen rarely, there seems to be no desire on the part of the government to make any legislative change.  Just a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, gave a strong indication that the status quo will remain.  That said, there is much more open discussion about gay rights that when we first came here 6 years ago.  The landscape is definitely changing, as this clip from the BBC shows:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22259012.  Watch this space.

Housing is another topic that takes up a lot of column inches and this subject has many different strands, from the affordability of public housing, to the recently introduced "cooling measures" and Singapore's most expensive house, ever. The house in question is on the market for 300 million Singapore dollars, about 240 million US.  Now it's a nice house, in a great location near the Botanic Gardens, but  all the same, 300 million dollars?????  Apparently Singapore is Asia's second most expensive housing market after Hong Kong, which is probably one of the reasons that the government is trying to cool things down.  It has recently imposed new taxes for buyers, making it more expensive for several groups to buy  - Singapore citizens who already own a property, Permanent Residents and "foreigners" i.e. any non-Singaporean who is not a PR.  Foreigners must pay a 15% tax on top of the stamp duty, so an extra 18% in total on top of the already hefty purchase price.  

The whole foreigner thing is another recurring theme in the press and I confess to feeling less welcome in Singapore than I did when we came here.  My regular readers will know that the lovely C and I have always admired Singapore's ability to punch above its weight.  For a tiny island, with no real natural resources, it has managed to create and sustain a level of economic growth and prosperity that is the envy of much of the world.  The government recently launched a white paper entitled ‘A Sustainable Population for a Dynamic Singapore’, which outlined their plans to continue that growth.  It would be a serious understatement to say that it was not well received.  The main focus of dissent concerned the projected population figure - 6.9 million people by the year 2030.  Personally, I can't see where the increase of 30% is going to come from, given the low birth rate (1.2 children average) and the fact that it is getting harder for foreigners to get a work permit or permanent residence.  But that is not what is concerning the locals.  They are worried about the ability of the infrastructure to support this growth.  Having lived and worked in London for many years, the odd train breakdown doesn't bother me, but Singaporeans are used to a public transport system that runs efficiently all the time, so the odd train breakdown gets really bad press here.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Sticking with the theme of the written word, I wish to lodge a complaint.  I do lots of my reading via e-books on my iPhone, many of which I download for free.  The problem is - and I think I have to blame the authors of the Twilight and Fifty Shades trilogies for this - that way too many of the books are about vampires or sex, and sometimes about vampires AND sex.  I have nothing against sex - quite the opposite in fact :-), but if these books are to be believed, all women are having mind blowing, multiple orgasm sex, several times a day, EVERY DAY. By my reckoning, I am several thousand climaxes short of the national average, hence my complaint.  If any of my readers are in the same boat, I hope that they will write to their MPs and the newspapers or take to the streets in protest.